“People are different.” That’s something I’ve said a number of times and firmly believe is true. Each of my children, each of my students, and each of the other people in my life is a unique individual whom I should treat with awareness of their individuality and respect for the person God created them to be. 

Unfortunately, humans are not good at dealing with all of this individuality. Our limited mental processes lead us to lump people (and everything else) into categories so that we can deal with them more easily. In and of itself, that’s not a bad thing so much as a necessary one, but we turn it into a bad thing when we start treating people badly because of the categories we have placed them in. Human history is littered with examples of the harm that people do when they see others as members of some other category rather than as individual human beings created by God. We celebrated MLK Day last Monday because Dr. King stood up to advocate for the oppressed while arguing against hatred and violence toward anyone.

Being part of one of those underprivileged categories hurts. I cannot claim to have a clue what it is like to be an African-American in current US culture: I’m about as white as you get (very pale-skinned and blonde). However, as a female computer science professor who has also worked in the industry, I have experienced more demonstrations that I was part of the denigrated minority than I would ever have believed possible in this day and age.

So what does this issue of categorization, bias, and privilege have to do with faith? More than some of us remember on a daily basis. 

James flat out tells his readers, “Don’t do it”: “My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory” (James 2:1 ESV). In case they didn’t get the message, he later goes on:

If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it (James 2:8-10 ESV).

It is crucial that we not miss this. If we show partiality (or favoritism), we are committing sin and are guilty as transgressors of the entire law. God takes prejudice seriously.

Now some might note that James is primarily focused on economic distinctions. His example of showing partiality has to do with treatment of the well-dressed and the shabbily clothed. I would argue that this distinction is one that we still struggle with in churches. In how many churches would someone who clearly couldn’t afford new clothes feel as welcome as someone in a new name-brand outfit?

The Bible doesn’t stop with treatment of the poor and the rich. It also addresses ethnicity and culture. We see multiple passages where Jesus has a conversation about the most important commandments: 1) Love God, and 2) Love your neighbor.  On one of those occasions, he tells a lawyer to go do those, and the response is telling. “But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’” (Luke 10:29 ESV). Jesus responds by telling the story, familiar to many of us, of the Good Samaritan. That story must be understood in context. The Samaritans and the Jews hated each other. It was a hatred rooted in ethnicity, culture, and religion. Jesus is clearly saying, that all people, even those in the other group that you despise, are your neighbors.

This shouldn’t have been a surprise to the lawyer. The Jews were a people set apart in the Old Testament, but God repeatedly demonstrated that outsiders who were not enemies should be treated well. Leviticus has multiple requirements to provide good and or equal treatment of the “sojourner among you.” King David’s great-grandmother was a Moabite woman (Ruth 4:17-19).

As the gospel spreads in the New Testament, we see it scattered to a variety of people. Both women and men hear and believe. It goes to Asia, Europe, and Africa. Some of those we hear about are rich; some are poor. Paul declares: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Galatians 3:27-29 ESV).

As followers of Jesus Christ, we have no excuse for acting out of prejudice of any kind. Let us strive to be part of the solution in this broken world and seek to treat every person God places in our path with the kindness and respect and love that God would have us show.

 

Photo by Randy Fath on Unsplash

One part of my daily routine, after I do my Bible reading, is to read small sections of several nonfiction books. Among my current reads is one about the gospel, and the author argues that many churches and individual Christians have lost sight of the essential gospel message and fail to present that message clearly.

While I haven’t finished the book yet and don’t want to misrepresent the author’s points, it has struck me that the author is undervaluing the importance of God’s love in the gospel story and message.

The book is reacting against views of the gospel that are human-centered rather than God-centered, and there is a legitimate concern there. We sometimes speak as if the whole story was ours–that creation and incarnation and crucifixion and resurrection all happened because God somehow needed human companionship. He doesn’t; he is self-sufficient. We benefit from it, but God didn’t do any of it because we deserved it or because he somehow had to have us.

Of course, that begs the question “Why?” Why would a self-sufficient, all-powerful, all-knowing God create people when he knew, given free will, they would turn away from him. Why would he subject himself to the humiliation of becoming one of them and the suffering of the crucifixion, all to allow some of them to come back and have fellowship with him?

That is something we cannot fully understand, of course. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord” (Isaiah 55:8 ESV). The answer the author offers is “for God’s glory.” That is certainly true, but I believe it to be incomplete. Another part of the answer is rooted deeply in God’s character, in his love.

After all, that is what he told us. One of the best known verses of the Bible declares it: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 ESV). Jesus made the point the day before his death that, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13 ESV).

The Bible tells us that God is love (1 John 4:16). Now, we can get in trouble focusing on that. We sometimes seem to think God’s love turns him into a friend or even a pet or a fluffy toy. 

We forget that God is also righteous and holy and just. His love does not change those qualities, and God’s love is of a kind that we cannot really understand. His is a truly unconditional, self-sacrificial love that wants the best for us. What’s more, unlike everyone else who cares for us, including ourselves, God actually knows what is best for us. We must also remember that God’s view always looks beyond present circumstances. An eternity with God is worth pain in this life, and God views it that way.

God’s love is a love deeply inherent in his character and completely lacking in selfishness. No part of his love is rooted in the one who is loved. It is entirely rooted in him. The greatest of human loves doesn’t come close. If we can grasp the reality of this love, it should bring us to our knees.

This I believe is the gospel: God chose to create a universe with people and to love them completely even though he knew they would reject him, which we did. He then chose to experience humiliation and pain as a sacrifice to reconcile us to himself. And any human willing to turn over his life to God and receive that gift of reconciliation and eternal life can experience God’s love in all of its wonder.

That is the good news: the gospel.

 

Photo by Hugo Fergusson on Unsplash

This part of January is challenging to me. In many ways, it always has been; it’s a busy time, getting ready for the new semester to start. We’re coming out of the holiday season. There are multiple family birthdays, which bring joy but also additional tasks, though at least I no longer have to figure out how to do birthday parties for a child born in January.

The hardest part of this week is in some ways also the easiest. It consists of writing two short notes, one a message on Facebook, the other a text. The messages are similar and consist of not much more than “I’m thinking of and praying for you today.” One is to my older son, the other to a woman I’ve never actually met.

Nine years ago, my husband and I were sleeping in on Saturday morning when the phone rang. It was our older son who had returned to college a few days before, and he sounded strange, breathing heavily and struggling to speak. As a mother, of course, I immediately pictured him injured in the hospital and began questioning him, trying to figure out what was going on. He eventually managed to convey that he was not hurt, so I began questioning him about his girlfriend (now wife), and he finally managed to say, “It’s Mark,” eventually followed by, “He’s gone.”

Mark was that instant lifelong friend that many people seem to make in college. They met the first day of orientation and were nearly inseparable for the next three and a half years until news of the fatal car accident came. 

What do you do when your son suffers such a blow? To this day, I don’t think I really know the answer to that beyond simply being there. Within the hour, we had hotel reservations and were on the road. We shopped for his first adult suit, met his future mother-in-law for the first time since she had come to support her daughter, took a group of Mark’s friends out for dinner. Our presence was appreciated, but it couldn’t stop the pain, of course, and then we had to go home, back to our jobs and comforts while our hearts bled for our child.

This was a life-changing event, in the short term as it impacted health and school, but also in the longer term. It impacted life goals and helped dictate our son’s current job. It affected the wedding, where there were no attendants because the person who was supposed to be best man couldn’t be there.

Healing has come with time, so much so that there are significant periods of time when Mark is forgotten and life is full of happiness and joy. But then there is this time of the year, as his birthday approaches, and we mark the anniversary of the death. And so I send a message to Mark’s mother and one to my son, to let them know that I, too, remember their loss on this day. A small thing, but all that I have to do that might help.

Then I question, as we are prone to do. Why, God, would you take this young man? Why would you allow my son to suffer such a loss? 

I have no answers for those questions beyond the general brokenness of the world and the free will that God has given people. After all, I don’t believe that God caused the accident, only that he did not act supernaturally to prevent it.

In my questioning, however, I often find myself reminded of the suffering Jesus went through and the suffering God the Father subjected himself to in causing the Son to suffer so. You see, having heard and sung of the blood of Jesus and Christ’s death and suffering all my life, I sometimes see that pain as not real. It becomes something that I know about, but don’t quite recognize for what it is. After all, God is God. He is supremely powerful and completely self-sufficient.

But, think about this: God is God, but he allowed himself in Jesus to be subjected to horrific pain.

• Jesus was betrayed by one of his twelve closest followers, someone who was supposed to be his friend. “While he was still speaking, there came a crowd, and the man called Judas, one of the twelve, was leading them. He drew near to Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus said to him, ‘Judas, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?’” (Luke 22:47-48 ESV).
• Jesus was mocked and scorned. “Then they spit in his face and struck him. And some slapped him, saying, ‘Prophesy to us, you Christ! Who is it that struck you?’” (Matthew 26:67-68 ESV). In addition, there is the crown of thorns, both painful and mocking. He’s spit upon again and even derided while on the cross.
• Jesus was beaten multiple times. We see him being beaten before he is taken to Pilate. The Bible states that Pilate had him scourged before delivering him to be crucified. Then we have a description of yet another beating as part of preparation for the crucifixion.
• Jesus died a physically agonizing death. Crucifixion was a weapon Rome used to keep subjugated peoples in line, and it was designed for cruelty and visibility.

All of this is just the part we can relate to. Jesus was also suffering from the weight of our sin: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV). That is a kind of suffering that we really don’t understand, though anyone who has struggled to be free of an addiction or some sinful habit that they just couldn’t shake may have an inkling of what Christ was going through.

Furthermore, as a parent whose children have suffered, I know that God the Father also suffered as he put Jesus through this ordeal for our sake. 

I don’t understand; this side of heaven, I probably won’t ever understand why the really awful things happen. Yet, I will hold on to the insight they give me into the suffering that the all-powerful, completely self-sufficient creator of the universe chose to go through so that we might be reconciled to him.

Surely he has borne our griefs
    and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
    smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
    and with his wounds we are healed.
                            Isaiah 53:4-5 ESV

I’m not usually one for New Year’s Resolutions. Most of the resolutions I have made over the years have been broken far too quickly, and I never wanted to fall into the trap of making the same empty promises year after year. However, this January clearly marks a new chapter in my life. I am a computer science professor, but I was pulled into administration nine years ago. I found my department chair position much more satisfying and rewarding than I expected, but also far more stressful and draining than teaching and research.  I stepped down from my position at the end of June and have been on leave since then, working on getting my research program back up and running as well as preparing to return to the class room on a full time basis.

Now, the time has come for my old and new life to begin again. Old because I’m going back to the job I did and loved for well over a decade. New because other circumstances have changed–children grown and moved away, new courses and changed course content, and a research field that looks nothing like it did a decade ago. As I look ahead, I am both thrilled and terrified; thrilled because I am glad to be out of the administrative role and its stresses, and because I loved my job in 2010; terrified because I am rusty, and because I want to love my job again.

Given these circumstances, I thought this might be a good year to actually make some resolutions and share them with you in place of my usual devotional content. So, here they are:

Care the Right Amount about My Job

A faculty position can take over your life, especially if you are a responsible person who cares about your students. I have a tendency to give my students more of my time and energy than I probably should. I can also occasionally get very absorbed into a research problem. As a mother of children at home, I worked to prevent my job from completely taking over my life, knowing that my family needed my time, though I’m sure my sons would tell you that I was not as successful as perhaps I should have been.

Looking ahead, I certainly don’t want to become one of those professors who go through the motions. I do care about my students and enjoy my research, but, more importantly, we are commanded to take our work seriously, whatever it is. “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ” (Colossians 3:23-24 ESV). We’re also encouraged to enjoy it. “And I commend joy, for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 8:15 ESV).

At the same time, I don’t want to lose track of other things that matter. The story of Mary and Martha reminds us that Jesus considers time spent with him to be important, more so than our daily work. My children no longer live here, but I still have a husband and friends. So my first resolution is to work hard, find joy in my work, and keep my work from consuming my life.

Spend Time in the Word

For many years, I have managed to keep a pretty consistent Bible reading and prayer time in the mornings, but I have only recently become serious about Scripture memorization and meditation. I also feel a need to pick up more serious Bible study than I have been engaged in recently. With the return to teaching, my daily schedule will become more erratic.

So my second resolution is to continue to reserve daily time for Scripture memory and to carve out at least an hour per week for serious Bible study in addition to my usual reading and prayer time.

Focus on Relationships

I am an introvert. In general, I do not need people when I get home from work. I love to read. I enjoy video games. I love to write. I can entertain myself with no problem at all, and I desperately need some of that time to be alone and recover the energy it costs me to engage with others.

But God doesn’t intend that even his introverts walk through life alone. We are commanded to fellowship. We are commanded to be witnesses. We cannot have good fellowship without spending time with other Christ followers. We cannot be effective witnesses without spending time with non-believers.

With the renewed scheduling flexibility of my faculty position, I have determined that I need to renew my focus on spending time with people and improving my relationships..

So my third resolution is to make sure I take time every week to spend with people other than students and to seek to develop at least one more good Christian friend and at least one friend that I can share Christ with.

 

Those are my resolutions for 2020. I encourage you to comment below about what God is leading you to commit to for the coming year.

 

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash